Voice-Recognition Adverts Could Be The Next Big Thing

Your television, tablet, and mobile are listening

Engaging with customers can be quite a difficult task at times. In the modern world, where people have multiple devices and use more than one screen at a time, distraction from main-screen entertainment is rife. I’m guilty of watching a TV show while simultaneously playing a game on my PlayStation Vita, usually combined with glancing at my phone for whatever conversation I’m having through WhatsApp or Twitter. I’m sure we’ve all committed multiple-screened sins at some point.

But what happens if devices are listening?

Could that see increased engagement with your brand?

Imagine if a YouTube pre-video advert allowed a customer to skip it by verbally agreeing to share their YouTube-connected email with you by just saying “yes”. Or how about a TV advert that let viewers see more, a la a red button style extras screen, just by saying “more”?

The possibilities are near endless, especially when you bring in a myriad of apps and services available on smartphones and tablets into account.

It’s not an unbelievable future either, as mobile advertisers have toyed with voice-recognition in the past.

The latest to show its hand in this market is National Public Radio, which will start running voice-recognition adverts through it’s smartphone app. The hope is that it’s million monthly listeners will engage with its advertisements far more than they actually are. The one advantage NPR has over other radio stations is that it has a rather tech-happy audience, who may well make more use of this feature than your regular smartphone radio listener.

“With these ads, you simply speak,” said National Public Media’s vice president of digital strategy and ad operations Bryan Moffett when speaking to Adweek. “When our test group heard [the call to action] ‘say download now’ or ‘say learn more,’ we universally heard them respond with ‘huh,’ sounding pleasantly surprised.”

“We have been demoing this for agencies and brands,” Moffett continued. “And the reaction has been roundly positive.”

While this is all well and good for mobiles and tablets, NPR hopes that cars with NPR app-enabled dashboards will be the biggest growth for voice-recognition due to the hands-free nature of further inquisition. “Cars are an area that we have high hopes for,” said Moffett.

According to the same Adweek article, JetBlue, who has been using voice-recognition adverts in its mobile campaigns, has seen a 50 per cent increase in brand interactivity than “the average rich-media experience”.

So, if yet another medium rolls out with voice-enabled adverts successfully, expect to see more and more coming your way soon.